Instant Pot Corned Beef and Cabbage

How it Fits into My Lifestyle

Growing up, my mom always made corned beef and cabbage. While this is a simple recipe, with very few ingredients, it took time and stressed her out. It needed to be cooked to perfection. Since I’ve moved out, I too, have made corned beef & cabbage a few different Marches. But again, I had to be home for a few hours to let it cook. Again, it was really easy, but took some planning and forethought-neither of which are strengths of mine. I’m more of a, “I have an hour to make & eat dinner, what can I throw together” than a major planner. I try, but then fall back to my old non-planning habits. I even wrote about how planning helps me, because I know it does, and I know it helps my clients, but planning and forethought are not my strengths.

How it’ll Make Your Life Easier

This recipe takes far less planning and forethought because it’s done in an Instant Pot. This was just the second recipe I made in my Instant Pot and it turned out great. You cook the corned beef for about an hour, then the vegetables for less than 5 minutes. This recipe will take you far less planning & forethought than one that takes hours and hours to cook. What’s even better is that the Instant Pot will automatically keep something warm for up to 10 hours, so you can cook it the night before or in the morning & eat for dinner. But that will take some planning & forethought. Luckily, it won’t take more than 5 minutes to start.

Quick Notes on This Recipe

Have you used an Instant Pot before? If not, know that it takes time to get up to pressure & to release the pressure, meaning your 60 minute corned beef will actually take 90 minutes at least. It’s all hands-off time, but an hour is a significant amount of time.

I know you’d want to cook it all together. I know because I TOTALLY would like to cook it all together. Unless you want vegetable mush at the end of the process, I’d recommend against it.

Cover meat with water when cooking.

Cut the corned beef against the grain, I kept saying this in my head but couldn’t get my hand to oblige. Oh well, you live and learn, AND it still tastes great.

My favorite St Patrick's Day meal, corned beef and cabbage, made easy in the instant pot.

Course: dinner, Main Course

Cuisine: Irish

Servings: 8people

Ingredients

6cups water

3-4poundscorned beefwith spices

1small headgreen cabbage

1poundred or yukon gold potatoes

1poundcarrots

Instructions

Place corned beef in bottom of instant pot, pour spices over beef. Add 6 cups of water, or enough to cover beef. Secure lid and set Pressure Release to SEALING. Select the MEAT/STEW setting and set cooking time for 60 minutes on high pressure.

Let pressure release naturally after cooking. Don't open the pressure release. Beef will continue to cook and will become even more tender. It will take about 30 minutes to release pressure. Remove beef if ready to eat, you can leave it in to be kept warm for up to 10 hours. Keep 2 cups of the cooking liquid to cook vegetables in. Discard remaining cooking liquid

Before serving, chop up cabbage, carrots, and potatoes into similar sized pieces. About an inch thick. Cabbage can be wedged.

Remove beef from pot. Cover with tin foil to keep warm while vegetables are cooking. Place steamer basket in pot, layer potatoes, then carrots, then cabbage into pot. Secure lid and set pressure release to SEALING. Press CANCEL button to reset the system. Select the STEAM setting, and set the cooking time to 3 minutes on high pressure.

Once vegetables are done, open pressure release to VENTING to quick release pressure. Do not stand directly over Instant Pot.

Carve corned beef into thin slices, and serve with vegetables. Keep cooking liquid to store leftover corned beef in as it will keep the beef moist.

Recipe Notes

If you like very flavorful beef and vegetables, add another 1/2 teaspoon of pickling spices to beef before it cooks.

If you have leftovers, you can totally…

add some oil to the corned beef and remaining veggies (add more potatoes if necessary) & make a quick corned beef hash. I’m totally going to make this.

cook up the leftover meat & veggies WITH the remaining broth and turn it into a soup. I bet chicken or turkey stock would be great in this.

turn your leftover corned beef & cabbage into a reuben sandwich. Add a slice of swiss cheese, some thousand island dressing, and pile between rye bread, and you’ll be in heaven.

Reader Interactions

Comments

I’m definitely making this next time my in-laws come over specifically my mother-in-law loves meet and since I’m a vegetarian and don’t eat it I never know how to cook it exactly right but this seems really easy to follow thanks for the recipe